Late a Little Early
by Jonque
Summary: In which Kakashi sacrifices himself to save his teacher.


**Late a Little Early**

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Hatake Kakashi was late. In nearly any other time or place, this would have been either old news or the beginning of a very bad habit inherited from his lost team-mate, Uchiha Obito. Coming back to Konoha from a long trip north and a mission to rescue a princess of all things, the young jonin had felt the effects of a terrible chakra—a pervasive feeling of hopelessness worse than any killing intent he had ever felt during the war, and had caught the scent of smoke coming from the direction of the village. From a tree-top situated on the last ridge surrounding the village, Kakashi bore witness to a scene that would haunt the nightmares of Konoha's residents for years to come—that of the great demon fox itself laying waste to everything and everyone in its path as it made its way slowly towards the interior of the village. Fighting his first impulse to rush headlong into battle, the young jonin scanned the battlefield for any sign of his sensei—it would be pretty hard to miss the man, since he was one of the rare few blonds in Konoha and had a tendency to throw around flashy techniques... not to mention summon giant toads, which tended to stand out even in a ninja village.

Not seeing any sign of his sensei and Hokage, Kakashi took off towards the administrative building and the Hokage's official seat of power—the tower at the center of the village—all the while sticking to an area well outside of the beast's path of destruction. As he made his way upstairs towards the Hokage's office, Kakashi found the building's lower floors deserted. The door to the office was ajar and Kakashi wasted no time entering the office and taking stock of the situation. "Oh good, you're here!" the Hokage sighed in obviously exaggerated relief as he nearly flew around his desk and held out a blanket-wrapped bundle towards the silver-haired jonin. "Hold this."

Kakashi blinked before accepting the bundle. The bundle in question promptly squirmed, nearly causing Kakashi to drop it. Pulling aside the blankets, the boy spotted a pink head topped with fine blond hair. "Sensei?" he questioned, glancing up towards the elder blond who had gone back around the desk and appeared to be checking over some scrolls. As the ground beneath them heaved and plaster dust rained down from the ceiling, the surreality of the situation nearly got to Kakashi. "What is this?" he asked, instead of the question he really wanted to ask, which was along the lines of _'There is a huge monster fox outside. Minato-sensei, why oh why have you picked _now _of all times to catch up on your paperwork?'_

"Hm?" Minato hummed in distracted question before glancing up to see Kakashi's confused glance between himself and the infant in his arms and back again. "Oh, that. Yeah, I suppose you haven't had much experience with those. I'm not sure, but I think it's called a 'baby,'" he quipped. After a moment, he amended, "That, or a parasite, depending on who you ask, when, and what mood they're in."

"Speaking of moods, you seem to be in a weird one," Kakashi pointed out.

Minato shrugged. "Well, it's either this or _'Oh Gods, oh Gods, we're all going to die! Everyone's counting on me to save them and all I can come up with is _this_. I am soooo fucked.'_ So _yeah_, I think I prefer this."

Kakashi nodded. Knowing his sensei as he did, it made sense... in a _'we're fucked anyway, so why worry'_ kind of way. It had been like that a lot in the down times between battles during the war. Of course, once he actually entered the battlefield, Namikaze Minato became a completely different person. Deciding to drop the subject, Kakashi returned to the topic of the still-squirming bundle in his arms. "So, who did you steal this from?"

"Hey! I didn't steal it! I'll have you know he's mine," Minato protested before quickly adding, "Well, mostly. His mom is _so_ going to kill me when she finds out I borrowed him."

"Why are you borrowing a baby?" the boy asked, then smirked under his mask and added, "I guess that explains the weight gain and the mood swings lately, too..."

One of Minato's brows twitched and his head jerked up from the papers he had been studying to level a glare at his former student. "You aren't too old for me to take over my knee," he threatened.

Shrugging off the threat, Kakashi moved to stand beside his former sensei behind the desk. Glancing down at the scrolls, notebooks, and other papers laid out across it, the jonin could make out what looked to be a complex summoning and sealing jutsu. "You made this?"

"Yep," Minato confirmed. "You sound surprised."

"How long have you been working on it?"

The elder blond shrugged. "Couple of hours. It's mostly bits and pieces cobbled together from other things. We only got word that Kyuubi was coming less than twenty-four hours ago. Damn thing moves swift."

Kakashi nodded. He wasn't entirely surprised, considering who his sensei was—a seal master in his own right and one-time apprentice to the legendary sage Jiraiya of the Sannin, who himself was a student of Sarutobi Hiruzen, Sandaime Hokage and The Professor. Glancing down at the blanket-wrapped blond in his arms, a stray thought crossed Kakashi's mind before he dismissed it. _'Maybe we'll continue the tradition and one day, I'll be your sensei.'_ Shaking off the thought, he asked, "So what's it do?"

"The baby? Eat, poop, and make a hell of a racket mostly—well, at least until they get older. Then they eat more, poop more, and make even more racket. The seal? Magic," Minato shrugged. Seeing his cycloptic student roll his visible eye, he grinned. "Well, what else would you call it? Besides, I think I'm going to need all the help I can get for this." The ground rumbled again and a deafening roar rent the air, making the very bones in their bodies vibrate. The infant began to cry softly. The easy-going grin slipped off Minato's face and his eyes closed for a moment as he visibly steeled himself for what was to come. When they opened again, in Minato's place stood Yondaime Hokage. "I've put it off long enough." Holding out his hands, he gestured for the child in Kakashi's arms. Handing the infant over, Kakashi took in the serious look on his sensei's face and came to the conclusion that Minato did not expect to be returning to his... wife? lover? and newborn child tonight. Glancing down at the notes and formulas once more, Kakashi's eye caught a particular bit of writing in plain and simple text. _'Summoning a shinigami requires a sacrifice equivalent to the task performed,'_ it read. "Let's go, Kakashi," Yondaime called from the doorway, having somehow quieted the child.

After a glance up at his sensei to make sure his back was still turned, Kakashi yanked the hitai-ate covering his left eye up. The transplanted sharingan copied everything on the desk and Kakashi quickly slid the headband back down before following Yondaime to the stairs and up to the roof. As they cleared the roof-access door, the burning village came into sight, along with the monstrous form of the attacking demon. Yondaime paused as he looked out over his once-beautiful home, being laid to waste by the sentient natural disaster heading straight for the tower. His resolve cemented, he plastered a grin across his face before offering the child to Kakashi again. "Eh, sorry. I kind of need to summon. You mind holding him again for a second?" he asked before handing the child off.

"What's his name?" Kakashi finally asked, having hoped Minato would simply tell him once he'd learned that the child was his sensei's. Then again, considering who it was, Kakashi was unsurprised—sensei could be annoying like that at times.

"Naruto," Minato answered softly. "Uzumaki Naruto." He would only have a few moments once Gamabunta had joined the battle before the fox took notice of the biggest threat in the area and focused on the toad. "Sandaime is waiting in the hospital. Once the fox is gone, I need you to take Naruto to him. Will you do that for me, Kakashi?"

"What about you?" Kakashi asked. The only Uzumaki in the village he could recall was a red-haired woman about his sensei's age—a refugee ninja from a foreign ninja village. He had only ever met her once, and only in passing, and he couldn't recall any time his sensei would have been able to interact with her outside of work-related matters. Then again, his sensei was pretty sneaky. Kakashi shrugged off the feeling of annoyance that his sensei hadn't trusted him enough to share the fact that he was having a child and waited for an answer. He understood why Minato had kept this from him, and he knew he was being foolish for feeling betrayed, but that didn't make it any less uncomfortable. After a moment of recieving none, he nodded. So, he was right then—it was a suicide technique, a life for a life. Equivalent exchange. "I'll do it."

"Thanks," Yondaime murmured, beginning to seal for the summoning.

"Then I guess I'd better go help distract it," Kakashi said, performing his own seals and creating an earth clone from the tiles of the roof around them. Handing the boy off to the clone, the silver-haired jonin performed the three seals to his only original technique—Raikiri. Blue lightning crackled into existance around Kakashi's right hand and a moment later, air and smoke displaced, announcing the arrival of Gamabunta in front of the tower as Yondaime finished his summoning. A glance to his right told him Minato's attention was firmly affixed to the toad—it was now or never. Yondaime opened his mouth to say something to the toad, but the words were cut off harshly by an electrified hand slapping him on the back and discharging its payload across his nervous system with a sharp crack. Namikaze Minato went down like a sack of potatos. Letting the remainder of the technique fade, Kakashi scratched at the back of his head and chuckled as he looked down on his sprawled out sensei and his unruly blond hair made even worse by the technique. "That's a good look for you, sensei." Hearing a snort from above, Kakashi turned his attention towards Gamabunta. "Mind letting me stand on your head for a few minutes?" the jonin asked.

Pulling a long inhale from his pipe, the toad glanced towards the rampaging fox which had yet to notice him. **"I suppose not,"** the boss toad mused. After all, if he knew Minato—and he did—then the so-called Blondaime Hokage had pulled some hare-brained, last-minute scheme out of his ass which would likely end up either severely wounding or killing him. And seeing as how Kakashi had chosen to disable the blond idiot, it stood to reason that it was the latter.

Nodding, Kakashi took Naruto back from his clone and let it disperse, leaving behind a pile of mostly-destroyed tiles. Glancing down at the boy in his arms, Kakashi found a pair of bright blue eyes set above a wide smile staring back up at him. If he hadn't been sure of his actions before, he was now. "Looks like we'll be breaking tradition and you won't be getting me for a sensei after all, kiddo."

"Ka.. ka..." Minato coughed from his position on the roof, slowly recovering from the zap Kakashi had given him.

Shifting his attention to his sensei, Kakashi sent him a sheepish look. "Sorry sensei, it looks like Team Seven is officially disbanded." Throwing his former sensei a wave, Kakashi sprung from the roof to land on top of the toad's head. "Just get me close," Kakashi called down to Gamabunta, who shifted his pipe to a better grip in his mouth and pulled out his blade before taking off in great hops towards the fox, which had finally noticed them. Pulling up his headband, Kakashi's sharingan spun furiously, burning the image of a wounded Konoha into his mind as he began sealing for his final jutsu. Glancing down at Naruto held tightly in his arms one last time, Kakashi smiled as he felt the summoning complete. "Do your best, Naruto."

Pulling himself shakily to his feet on the roof of the tower, Minato watched as a blinding light flashed over Konoha and the Kyuubi disappeared. He tried and failed to connect with the kunai he knew Kakashi carried that would enable him to flash from the roof to the jonin's position. A few more quick tests showed his chakra was still out of whack from the zap Kakashi had given him and he didn't trust his shaky body enough to try to roof-hop to the toad. Luckily, he didn't have to, as Gamabunta quickly made his way back to the tower and laid the still Kakashi and the crying Naruto down on the roof. The toad above him exhaled in a long sigh before quietly murmuring, **"Minato, I'm so—"**

"Just go, Bunta," Minato cut the toad off, for once not giving a good god damn about whether or not he offended the boss toad. The toad, however, did not take exception to the man's harsh tone. Nodding, Gamabunta dispelled the chakra holding him in Konoha and returned to the toads' sacred mountain home. Minato ignored the toad, focused as he was on Kakashi and the dread welling up with the realization that he would have to bury _another_ student. Movement from atop Kakashi's body drew his attention to the bundle of blankets there and he quickly knelt to retrieve Naruto. Hands halfway outstretched to pick the infant up to take the boy down to the waiting Sarutobi, Minato paused and reached up to pull down Kakashi's hitai-ate so that it covered his sharingan once more, then pulled his other eyelid closed. When the eye refused to stay closed after the second try, Minato nodded. "Fine then, have it your way," he murmured before quickly gathering Naruto in his arms. "I'll come back for you soon, Kakashi," Minato promised quietly.

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**Author's Notes:** I don't usually do one-shots, but decided to keep this short and simple. Kakashi gets sent to Snow/Spring a little early/late (yes, making the movie canon here) and arrives in Konoha during the attack instead of either missing it entirely or being there the whole time. As for Kushina? Well, that's up to you to decide. Either she died in childbirth, or someone killed her shortly after, or Minato makes it back to her in time and she lives, thus Naruto grows up with both parents... or where ever someone wanted to take it. One could possibly even consider it an open challenge, to finish this particular plot without falling back on canon material--save for characters and possibly a few missions/situations--as a crutch. For instance, while the events in Wave may still take place... they may not, since Minato is around and may have an interest in a possible port connected to the mainland by bridge, within a few days' travel of Konoha--not to mention that it's close to Mist and would be a valuable outpost for intelligence gathering. I didn't want to post this because it needs work, but decided to anyway.


End file.
